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Lower Central Park West to Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts Historical Walking Tour
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Constructed from 1909 to 1911, Harperly Hall is a U-shaped apartment building of 11 stories overlooking Central Park. The main entrance faces south onto W. 64th Street. The brown brick building with a limestone base and terra cotta trim was the first apartment building in the Central Park West area to be organized as a co-operative and offered 76 units when it opened. The structure has been listed in the New York and National Registers of Historic Places since 1982 as part of the Central Park West Historic District. The building is still a residential co-op. The music icon Madonna lived in the building until she sold her apartment in 2013.


1975 view of Harperly Hall, looking up from W. 64th Street (Howard)

Building, Sky, Window, Rectangle

Future location of Harperly Hall on 1863 scenic map of Central Park area (Bachmann)

Plant community, Ecoregion, Plant, Branch

Future location of Harperly Hall (blue) on 1894 map (Bromley p. 25)

Map, Rectangle, Schematic, Font

Harperly Hall courtyard in 2008 photo, looking north (Team Boerum)

Building, Plant, Window, Property

Planning for Central Park began in the 1850s. At that time, the area was home to several communities of recent immigrants and there was also a community of African American homeowners around present-day 82nd, street, a vibrant community known as Seneca Village. After the city acquired the land, builders were still slow to develop the area around Central Park as most residents still lived in other parts of the growing city. In the 1860s, one building faced the park on Eighth Avenue (now Central Park West along the park border) between W. 64th and W. 65th Streets: a two-story structure near the middle of the block (see the 1863 map clip below). The structure was gone by 1894 and no buildings stood on the lots that would become home to Harperly Hall (see the 1894 map below).

Henry Wilhelm Wilkinson designed Harperly Hall in 1907 combining elements of Arts and crafts and Neo-Italian Renaissance styles. Wilkinson named the building for an ancestral manor house from County Durham, England. The central courtyard, side street (W. 64th St.) main entrance, and Juliet balconies set this building apart from its neighbors. The bricks are rough-surfaced and laid in patterns that remind some of a shag rug.

The apartments at Harperly Hall were advertised for rent in 1912 from $850 to $2,500 for two-, three- and eight-room apartments; some had kitchenettes. The building included a restaurant and the rent later included "refrigeration," a term used for early air conditioning following the 1902 invention of Willis Carrier for a system originally designed to reduce humidity inside a printing plant. (Four years later, Carrier patented "an apparatus for treating air." A furnished apartment on the top floor was advertised for rent in 1917 at $4,800; this apartment featured tiled floors, two fireplaces, a 26-foot square living room, and a balcony overlooking Central Park.

The singer Madonna used to live in Harperly Hall, with her husband Sean Penn and continued to live here after their divorce. The Material Girl sold her co-op unit in 2013 for $16 million. Harperly Hall currently holds about 85 co-op residential units, and units sold recently from $850,000 for a one-bedroom/ apartment up to nearly $5 million for a four-bedroom/eight-room unit. Larger units (six bedrooms/ 15 rooms) are advertised for nearly $19 million.

Anonymous. "Apartment of 7 Rooms. Advertisement." The Sun (New York, NY) October 7th 1917. Real estate sec, 10-10.

Howard, Alexandra Cushing. Building-Structure Inventory Form for Harperly Hall, New York, N.Y.. Albany, NY. Division for Historic Preservation, New York State Parks and Recreation, 1975.

StreetEasy. Building: Harperley Hall, 41 Central Park West, StreetEasy: Lincoln Square Buildings. August 1st 2021. Accessed August 31st 2021. https://streeteasy.com/building/harperley-hall.

Wood, F. R. "W.H. Dolson Co. Advertisement." New-York Tribune (New York, NY) September 8th 1912. Classifieds sec, 8-8.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

New York State Cultural Resource Information System (NYS CRIS): https://cris.parks.ny.gov/Default.aspx

New York Public Library (NYPL): https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e3-cbd4-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Library of Congress (LOC): https://www.loc.gov/item/2010587355/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harperly_Hall#/media/File:WSTM_Team_Boerum_0076.jpg